Consequences For Ignorance
by Sonikku Senshi
Summary: Set five years in the future. An Irken, who has been bound to the Earth due to his mission, becomes quite unhappy with recent results, and makes a critical observation of his enemy.
1. No Walk in the Park

Random ficcyness. Unsure of what I'm going to write, but humor will come after this chapter. I don't even know what type of romance will be included, and if I'll even add any. ::Brow quirk.:: Wow. I always write romance, and since I began posting on FFN, I haven't even started one with romance in it. I'm currently working on two more stories that I may finish and post later.  
  
Disclaimer: Oh. Right. I own this stuff. What have I told you people? What has everyone else told you? Good. Never forget that Jhonen Vasquez created Invader Zim, and that Nickelodeon owns it, because I'm not telling you again. Well...maybe....  
  
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Twilight. The perfect time of day for a walk in the park. She brushed her hair from her face, which seemed a near black tone in this light. All of the street lamps in this godforsaken place had burned out to nothing but one, which flickered at the very tip of the virgin and forgotten baseball field on the western side of the area. The fall was the best time of year for such a walk, but she had to settle with what she had, and that was the end of spring, birth of dreaded summer.  
  
Silently, she hoisted herself up and into a tree, glancing past the nothingness to a faded figure at the opposing side of the park. It was near the light, or the occasional flash of it, and from what she could tell, she hadn't been spotted yet. She crawled onto the second lowest branch, and removed her book bag, revealing pencils and a sketchpad from the depths. Taking advantage of the paper she had, she began to outline the figure. It was a perfect picture, a dark creature in the shadows...but damn! It was coming towards her.  
  
Her hands worked faster, in hopes of getting the entire shape in before he got away. A he, she thought. Just a guess. Still, with the position they were standing it, that was all she could do. Whatever they were, they were continuously nearing her beloved hiding spot. She was positive she hadn't been seen, and began to shade in the features that were untouched by blackness. Funny, the person didn't appear to have a nose or ears. Even with the lack of color, it seemed almost an olive shade. She looked to her skin. Hers only looked gray without light.  
  
She finally came to a conclusion. It was Zim. No point in completing the drawing now. The girl knew that he only meant trouble for her concentration. Sighing, she moved to a higher place in the tree, then stopped, finding what the boy was after. A low growl escaped her throat as she spotted another person in the tree to the right of hers. She may not have, had he not snorted in his sleep, but he did. Her brother lay in an odd position between a few branches, binoculars hanging from his neck, and the blinking reflected off of his glasses.  
  
Another minute passed with Zim searching for her brother. Eventually, he noticed the reflection of the light against something small. He seemed to have known that the boy was in this area, just not quite where. It was quite obvious as he came even closer that he wasn't happy--to say the very least. As a matter of fact, he looked as if he might explode in fury.  
  
She allowed a silent chuckle to pass through her lips. The sound was only in her head, but it did shake her some. This was not enough for Zim to notice, and he began to climb the tree that her brother was in. It would prove quite amusing to her once he reached his target. As he moved from one branch to the next, the visible areas on his body changed as it passed behind clusters of leaves in the dark. Finally, the branch beneath her brother shook, letting the girl know exactly where the other was.  
  
A yelp escaped the younger, normally colored one as he plummeted, followed by an "oof!" as he hit the ground below. A cackle could be heard, not from her, but the green figure as he followed, much more gracefully, then a slight grunt as he also made contact. He landed erect, but crouched, then fixed his stance, a superior look on his face. The boy rolled over in front of him, groaning in pain.  
  
"Teh-heh. Pitiful Dib thing. You should never have even tried the camera trick. you should have known I'd find them and trace you down." Zim's voice heightened to a more powerful volume. "You're pathetic!!" He followed this up with another cackle.  
  
"Zim, you bastard! You should have known that I was just waiting for you up there!" Dib's voice was more youthful than the other's, and there seemed to be a bit of childish amusement in each address he held for Zim.  
  
There was a moment of silence before Zim's laughter started up again. "Asleep?"  
  
The boy sounded embarrassed. "I wasn't asleep, I was simply acting. I'm good at acting." The only problem with his lie was the fact that it was a lie.  
  
The two exchanged more insults. This had been going on now for five years. Not once had their fighting stopped. Each time the two were put in the same room, or within a good twenty yards of one another, they immediately clashed. Sometimes it became physical, and her brother would drag himself home, exhausted and covered in bruises. She'd have to make it a hell for him at home, too. It was just more entertaining that way.  
  
At last, she could stand the scene no more and keep her usual attitude toward the world at the same time, and she dropped from the tree, coming into view, but not after she'd reloaded her back pack and returned it to its place on her shoulders. She made her way to the other two, frowning and making it quite apparent. Her shape came into their view more so than it had before. She was most certainly a Goth, judging by attire. She wore a black suede sleeveless dress over her pale pink and black striped turtleneck, despite the weather. Her matching knee-length socks kept her feet from touching the low-calf platform boots she also wore, and they faded into the shadows as nothing. She appeared to them in grayscale with the lack of light. Even her vibrant purple hair seemed colorless. However, she could make out colors just a tad better than them, and could tell exactly what they were dressed in.  
  
Perhaps it was that males are somewhat color blind, but the probability factors leaned to the fact that she spent most of her life in some darkness of sorts.  
  
"Gaz?" Dib looked to her. At this point, he'd stood, making an inch taller than Zim. Though he didn't show it at the moment, when Zim had discovered that the boy was taller than him, even by that tiny measure, he'd been very upset. She had come up with her own idea as to why he did such, but never was sure exactly how accurate it was. Her thoughts shifted back to scene with great speed, and she walked toward her brother, whose height difference was even greater next to hers. At the age of sixteen, Gaz was getting her payment for not eating like other people.  
  
"Dib, we're going home. You're not going to act weird any longer." The expression she held told him not to argue, or he would pay dearly, and he currently wasn't in much of a place to handle sacrificing use of too many limbs. Therefore, she got the results quickly, and with one final glare to the green one, he pretended to agree and began to walk home. He didn't even question what she was doing there in a tree. It was all to common for her to come and ruin things for him, and should he fight it, he'd get a good beating.  
  
But, some people would argue, stupid people, she was only his younger sibling, so why did he tolerate it? She was so much more powerful than him in the way that she could doom people. All one had to do was annoy her in the tiniest of ways, and she became ultimately stronger. She didn't care, nor did she find it odd. It just made her life one step closer to heaven, although she lived in hell.  
  
There was more to the hell than met the eye, too. It wasn't just about being evil and getting engulfed in flame; she'd only encountered disastrous fire once in her life. There were other things that complimented a horrible life. Some examples would be not knowing much about her mother, who had left their family when she was only two, her father, at times, not even realizing that she existed, or knowing that since she had hit puberty, those female organs would do her no good with her popularity. Much more happened, too, but they came in smaller portions of Fuck Your Life Up pasta dinners. Gaz hated pasta.  
  
Behind her, Dib seemed disappointed in himself. Perhaps other things.  
  
"You know...it's pointless." She caught his attention, as she rarely spoke to him, although the words were typical enough to fit her personality. "You'll never prove to the world anything, and you'll just die unhappy. Is that what you really want?"  
  
He refused to believe it. "You'll see, Gaz. Zim has to screw up sometime."  
  
She grunted in response, at first, then decided to add something to it, "But will you be ready? You'll just fuck it up and Zim will get away again. No one ever listens to people who are different. And you're just weird." She spoke calmly, knowing she was right, and knowing he didn't care.  
  
"You just don't get it. What paranormal investigator gives up on his finds? Especially those like Zim?"  
  
"None, I guess. But I was just saying what makes more sense. You're supposed to be a genius. Can't you even figure that out for yourself?" He seemed pained by her words.  
  
"I know what I'm doing." He stared at his feet as he moved along, begging them to stop. He didn't feel like walking so close to her when she was in this sort of mood. Maybe it was her way to maintain some social output, but it didn't appear to suit him well. Out of the corner of his eye, her body shifted with a shrug, telling him to do what he wanted. He did that much, anyway. 


	2. What's He Up To, Now?

Chapter two completed. Although I finished the two chapters in one night, I think it took me long enough, even though it IS rather short. Oh well...I'm going for three now. Three should be more Zim based, as Chapter one was Gaz based and two was more Dibbish.  
  
  
  
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He sat, awake in the living room at five in the morning. Dawn crept over the man-made steel and glass mountains just a mile away from where he lived. A few minutes later, a few crystals of sunlight would pierce through the window, despite the closed blinds. Gaz had went upstairs upon arrival, supposedly to sleep, but he had his doubts on how long that would last. The TV caused his skin to flicker all sorts of strange colors as he watched it. No sound came from it though; he'd put the speakers to rest after Gaz left him alone down there. If he did happen to wake her, it would be his chosen fate, and she would decide it.  
  
His trench coat lay discarded in front of the couch. He was reclined on the piece of furniture sideways, feet propped over the arm, so not to dirty it with the mud from outside. Feeling his lids grow heavy, he moved the decorative pillows from behind his back, with the exception of one, which he left behind his head. Ever so slowly, he lost his alertness, and the golden oculars were lost somewhere behind the thick eyelids and glasses.  
  
However, he was startled to an awakening when a loud thwacking sound occurred somewhere upstairs. Gaz's loud voice seeped through the ceiling to him, and only some of the words were clear to him. How odd, she seemed loud enough, but muffled. After a few minutes of musing over the possibilities, Dib lost track of time, and got caught up in his mind, forgetting to even check on her. Eventually, she grew silent. When this happened, he relaxed himself and shut his eyes, taking it in as being a dream...  
  
The next true morning, he called to his sister repeatedly, informing her that she was going to be late for Skool. He hadn't even noticed her absence the day before, but it gradually came into his view. He made his way up the stairs, walking to her room and knocking. Receiving no response, he adjusted his blue shirt and coat, then tried the door. Locked. He sighed. This had happened before. She'd get pissed and lock herself away from the world into her own paradise. Dib knew that she did things that one shouldn't, but who was there to tell that would believe him? He couldn't even ask advice, without being looked at oddly.  
  
Deciding that she wouldn't leave her own personal vacation for another twenty-four hours at least, he went on his way. Nothing existed to be done about her. Not within Dib's reaches, anyway. In mid-journey, Dib stopped to see his reflection in the flat screen's glass. Scythe was in position. Good. He looked exactly the way he wanted to, no matter what his father found more appropriate for his figure. He was a scientist, so what could he know about clothing? He chuckled, bending down to adjust a buckle on his boot before heading out the door.  
  
At Skool, no one asked about her. This was normal. None of the students really cared about them. They didn't put forth much effort to prove otherwise, either. He really had no thoughts about her for the entirety of that morning himself.  
  
Toward the end of the skool day, as Zim and Dib passed one another, rather than glaring, Zim grinned widely and made a path around him. The look on his face made Dib stop and raise a brow. It was only common practice for him to make a face like that if...  
  
"I know you're up to something!" Dib yelled back through the crowd, but Zim was nowhere to be seen. He growled lowly and mumbled something out of hearing range for those about him. It was probably for the better, as people were already beginning to laugh at him over the little he'd done just then. His hand was brought to his face and, using a single digit, he pressed his glasses up the bridge of his nose. Defeatedly, the boy sighed and completed the task of getting to, and putting his books in his locker. One period left of Skool for that day. It hadn't been the best of all spent time, but Mondays were generally the devil's other holidays.  
  
He shuffled, hurriedly to Technology Sciences. Someone's shoulder painted a pink spot on Dib's face and he winced, yet kept his pace level. Chances were, Torque was laughing at him, and planning on skipping his next class, he thought. He knew all of Torque's schedule. Math was next for him. That familiar shade of green caught his eye and he looked up and to the left. Zim and some girl appeared to be discussing something. What sort of girl actually got along with him? His head made a negative motion, but he went on. No point in being late because Zim was going to try and take over the Earth again.  
  
Because if he obeyed his instincts, he just knew he'd be suspended for doing that too many times. 


	3. A Change in Direction

Chapter three!! After what? Three weeks? Very fitting. ::Sigh.:: Oh well. I tried. There's this huge at-home situation going on, but three is Zimmyness! Wai, wai! I've been up late drawing Zim this past week - anime style! Hopefully I can scan, but due to the fact that the computer I'm allowed on is at one house, and the scanner is at another... x_x;; 'Tis hard. I stole the Zim-having-Bejiita hair look, though. n.n;; It's just sooo kyute, though. Eee! Anyway! I just got meh some IZ songs, yo! Everyone clap for Kevin Manthei!! His Wheelchair Battle from Scary Movie 2 is good, also! o.o I like the end. ::Giggle.:: You can go get his music stuffs at: www.kmmproductions.com/music.html  
  
  
  
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She lay, tossed like a knit cover throw on the couch, which was arranged against the back wall of the living room. She hadn't waken, and that was all with good reason. Her left hand was crossed over her chest that moved slowly with the set breathing pattern that all human -- and some others -- possessed. Her right arm limply hung off the side of the cushioned seating, pale and thin digits barely sweeping the floor beneath them.  
  
He cocked his head as his shadow blanketed a small portion of the girl's body. She looked so peaceful in this world, but he knew that whatever lay beneath, whatever it was she was picturing past this state, it wasn't so much a dream as one should be. Probably filled with death and morons. His own continuous breathing paused as she made a small movement, an involuntary twitch of her face muscles. The look she now bared confirmed his musings; eyebrows reached out toward one another, and her blank expression was marked across with a frown. Slowly, her purple hair began to loose it's lightness, and grew weighted against her forehead.  
  
Contented with the finds that the girl wasn't waking any time soon, he headed for the elevator hidden in a toilet in the kitchen. Before he stepped in, he glanced back with red eyes; the color seemed deepened with thought. Wasn't there something humans needed to survive? It had been a few days since her "arrival." He thought. Irken needed some sort of liquid to keep their bodily functions working, but was that what they needed. Now he wished that he'd paid attention in biology. He really didn't want her dead.  
  
Well, at least that wasn't part of the new plan. Originally, he was going to get the Dib-human to try and save her, and when he arrived, he'd slaughter her. For some reason, that didn't have quite the ring to it that it used to. Once, he'd even thought of trying to make her comfortable, but that was just plain insane. That would mean Zim cared, and Zim most certainly did not care.  
  
He stared back at her for another second before proceeding down into his laboratories. He could worry about all of that nonsense later.  
  
He may not have been the most intelligent creature in all of the universe, but he did have a well thought out plan. He wasn't leaving Gaz out in plain sight to any passerby, either. A holographic projection was all that could be seen from people looking in from outside. A three dimensional picture was all that was needed; it showed a view of the inside, from last week. At any angle, it could been seen exactly the way it would have at that angle. Occasionally, Zim would stroll by in his human disguise, or rather a wig and contact lens, despite his creamy mint features, and his sea green puppy would sit and squeal soundlessly. It seemed like a perfect image.  
  
He locked away thoughts of how he could make everything work better as the computer announced that his ride was over. He left the platform and brought his attention to a microscopic camera he was constructing. It worked quite well, actually, but Zim was hard to satisfy. He thirsted for things better than what was possible. Perhaps that's why he fought the height-based government on Irk for so many years. But now...now he'd grown taller, so he had no true purpose to fight for respect -- at least in his own mind -- with the exception of working to become leader of them all.  
  
His many years on Earth; that was all part of the strategic form of conquering he had. That's what he'd told himself, though the Almighty Tallest didn't buy it as much as he'd thought. However, he was able to learn more about the humans than any of the other invaders had learned about their new slaves and controlled people. He could also tell you about how stomach-clenching the thought of eating their food was, too. For the most part. As with all things, something had to fight back, and that was the sweet taste of Brainfreezies and Lik-M-Aid. No one ever turned their pointy noses down to those to his knowledge.  
  
Another thing he knew about was how unobservant most humans were. That's why the satellite feed controlled camera he was working on would be so perfect once he was done. Without even thinking that they were possibly being watched, the humans, namely the Professor Membrane one, would go about doing things that he normally might. And, of course, his son.  
  
He looked to the ceiling randomly, as if to attract the electronic servant's attention. "Computer. Move all of this to the engineering room. I need complete silence to perform my wonders." A fist was driven at the skies, as if to prove that he was worthy of such to the world.  
  
"Project four, eight, two, A moved to proper designing area." Zim nodded in an approving manner and started toward the room himself when a scratching noise grasped his curiosity.  
  
He tilted his head down and to the right some, looking over his shoulder with a brow lifted in questionment. Knowing his luck, there was the slight chance that it was the Dib-human, but...was there really that chance? He narrowed his eyes. "GIR?"  
  
His response was a muffled yet high-pitched giggle. He winced at the tone, then growled. "GIR! I told you not to do that!" He faced away from where he truly needed to be going, and brought closed hands to his waist. "You know not to be intruding my personal quiet time." True, it wasn't real quiet time, but Zim never really sat down and thought out his life like he probably should have with such a personality.  
  
"But," the Irken's eyes seemed to narrow with the little robot's argument as he dropped down from the giant power cords in the ceiling, "Master, I was already down here when you come, and you looked so cute that I didn't want to leave. Aww..." He made a small pinching motion at Zim's cheeks, but didn't quite reach.  
  
Zim swatted at the hand. "GIR! Concentrate. I'm going to be working on something very," he brought stress to the word, "very important. Do you understand me?" He continued as the robot shook its head, "Just be quiet, okay?"  
  
"Oookie doookie!" He leaned forward long he enough to say this, then ran, squealing, out of the lab. Just as he arrived in the living room, the window projection placed Zim on the couch, seemingly talking about something, but due to its silence, his talking sounded one awful bit like GIR screaming about bacon.  
  
Zim sighed with relief once the nuisance was gone. Eventually, he got the chance to begin his work on the camera, and managed to get it to work with a built in 3-D observational system. It was hard work, but he wasn't one to admit it to a person, unless to show his dedication to his career. He held the near-completed object up to the gods, boasting to them, or anyone else that would listen, what he had done, and broke out into mad laughter at the end. Somehow this conversation with Mr. Nobody turned into, like all the others, a story of how he'd take over the Earth.  
  
Silently, he returned upstairs, only to find GIR hanging upside down above the girl's head, screeching at her. At the state she was in now, if he fell, not even Zim would have the ability to wake her from the deep dreaming sequence she'd been engrossed in. He had questions for her...and if GIR fell...  
  
"GIR!" The mechanical maniac twisted around to see his master. He looked very unbalanced. Zim bit his lip, then continued, clenching the sides of his maroon shirt tightly in his fists, pressing his wrists against his outer thighs. "Get down from there immediately!"  
  
"Yes, my lord! Okay...I just need to undo my leg offa this thingie here, and let go o' this thang..."  
  
"GIR! You're going to fall on her!"  
  
"Okay, master. Jus' lemme undo my other arm. You want me to land in her lap? It's real cozy..."  
  
"No, GIR, I want you to try and not land on her." He folded his arms in disgust of the robot's small amount of intelligence. It always seemed to do the opposite of what he wanted, no matter what, and he knew that one day, it might just cause him trouble. "We cannot allow the human to go uncontrollably unconscious, or else my clever plan will be a waste of time. Do you understand the importance of this one, simple task?"  
  
GIR nodded. "Okay...now, what?"  
  
"Try this: climb down, do not drop down, climb! And be sure to not touch the human with yourself or anything else! Got it?" GIR nodded once more, and this time, to the surprise of the onlookers, being Zim and the computer, he managed to obey and follow the directed route to Gaz's temporary safety.  
  
A flutter of the eyelashes was her only show of gratitude. It would have been the same, were she conscious, so it didn't really matter that he didn't notice. He exhaled with emotion and turned to face the door. "I'm going to see what the other human girl is up to. Do not touch the Gaz- human. DO NOT TOUCH!" With that, a very odd looking green boy, who was putting in contacts, disappeared behind the purple.  
  
Zim knew where to go. He certainly wasn't the only one on this planet against Dib, and an odd-looking human female had made her way up to him yesterday. She first laughed, so uncontrollably he thought he might have to fix that for her, then stopped and stiood without so much as another giggle. She'd known his name, probably because of Dib, he figured, and wanted to invite him to a "party."  
  
To Zim, it was indeed a party. Making trash of the human's sleeping chambers was most certainly a sweet sounding event, but he didn't want to associate with his future slaves as long as he could help it. They were "icky." And they were going to destroy Dib's room. He fought away a grin as he marched neatly as possible, tossing one leg into the air entirely straight before bringing it down, then repeating with the other, and so continued. His arms hung by his side, and despite what his body language spoke out, his facial expression disagreed. He couldn't wait to see what they had done.  
  
After another five minutes of walking, he arrived. It wasn't a very large home, with the comparison of how much the family actually profitted. The annual income of the professor was beyond the average Earth being's imagination. He looked up at it, grinning far past what he thought. The feature took up nearly all of his facial space. He absently allowed his fingers to slide into his pockets, and a chuckle escaped him. It was sheer beauty.  
  
The window that the Dib-human used to view the planet through was entiely shattered from its base. There were a number of bright colors sprayed around it, probably with some sort of liquid-firing weapon. Dib sometimes chased him with water in them. And possibly some paintball guns. They were all in the general area of the window's former placement; more than likely, his room was just dripping in the stuff. He crossed the street for further examination, finding that his theories were, in fact, correct. It would seem that Dib wasn't there.  
  
That's when Zim's luck would come in handy. Silent, slow footsteps occured behind him. He cocked his head to the side to see. The expression on his face was amazing. He was only sorry that he couldn't claim victory over this event. At least not the mess. The human boy gaped a few seconds longer before allowing a emitting a deathly whisper to the other.  
  
"You..." he still held the same look, "you..."  
  
Zim held back his laguhter, "Hmm, yes?"  
  
"...You..."  
  
"It won't do you any good at all to repeat that word. I'd get to work cleaning, because it's going to take you a while to fix that up nice and pretty."  
  
Dib's eye twitched involuntarily. "How could you do such? Not even I would stoop that low, Zim. Especially when trying to prove my superiority." His fingers curled to his palms tightly.  
  
"One, I'm your enemy, Dib. There's no restriction as to what I'd do against you. Two, I'm not responsible for this," he answered flatly. He wasn't going to lie, but he really did want to be the cause for the look on his face. It was a beautiful sight. So much so that Zim actually considered doing something quite similar to see it again. The pain, the distress, the confusion; Zim fed off of these things when possessed by Dib.  
  
He gave a blank look. "Then...who...?"  
  
Zim shrugged. "Not at will to say. Too envious. How can I give credit to the person when I want it?"  
  
He felt his canines pierce into his lower lip. "You just don't know how to quit while you're ahead, do you?" His glare returned.  
  
Zim's eyes widened, not helping the situation any for Dib. "The moose!!" Immediately he jumped and followed the direction that his finger had been pointing toward. Finding nothing, he turned back to see Zim...or not, rather, as he had gone.  
  
"Hey!" 


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